Teaching children to become entrepreneurs

A parent sent her praises to this column for featuring youth entrepreneurship that came out a month ago. But it also troubled me at the same time that I had to spend some grueling nights on the internet and call some friends in business for advice to her difficult question: At what age do we start to teach our kids and how do we teach them to become entrepreneurs.?

If you're going to throw the same question to any professor in business, they'll never give you a quick answer. But of course, there hasn't been any textbook produced yet on the subject nor the idea of teaching children to become entrepreneurs has been considered by schools to become part of the lessons in grade school or high school.

My research also tells me that there are no studies at the moment that determine the best age for children to appreciate or absorb the concept of business but "To expose them at an early age may help them learn that business is a means to get money." says Wilmer Olano, president of iDesign a web development company. Her wife, Milarose says that their children may not actually understand everything what she and her husband are doing but "tagging them to the office once in a while gives them an idea what work means and what you get at the end of the day."

With that, what the Olano couple teaches to their children is the idea of return or a system of rewards for the work done. Excellent job, Wilmer and Milarose!

Another couple, Terry and Yen, who run one of the biggest fish distribution houses in Cebu like to teach entrepreneurship rather interestingly. "It's a dirty business. The smell is not something most people enjoy. But the smell of money is what keeps this business running for generations." grins Yen who happens to be also my first cousin.

Terry insists that we cannot force our children to follow what we do for a living. We can only try to get them interested. "While money is an interesting part of business, what's interesting is how that money should grow. We need our children to get challenged by the idea and I am glad that my eldest has taken this challenge ever since he was a young boy. I have seen him waking up early in the morning sharing the same goals to make good money for the investment we put up for the day and to think he's just only a teenager."

Interesting indeed. When the time comes my nephew, Andrei, becomes rich as his parents he should do the giving to me every Christmas. (*me grins*)

The lesson learned here is to motivate our children to be industrious. To value money not for how much it can buy but how much it can give back when it is used in business. With that, I give five stars to Terry and Yen.

I would like to cap off with my own view that while we need to embed the concept of reward to encourage our children to become entrepreneurs lets us not also forget that the greatest reward our children need to learn in entrepreneurship is how these rewards must be honestly acquired and the willingness to give up such rewards when the interest of others are at risk.

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